Return to Northwest Coast of America exploration
The stay in the Hawaiian Islands had been a short one and indicated Laperouse's desire to reach Alaska as soon as possible. What he did not realise was that his journey through the Hawaiian Islands had been mirrored by two British ships under the command of Nathaniel Portlock. In fact, the King George and the Queen Charlotte had been sailing a very similar route to Laperouse since leaving Britain in May 1785. They had reached Hawaii on 24 May and had stood off Kealakekua Bay before moving on to Oahu on the 28th. The British and French ships, therefore, passed within a few kilometres of each other just off the coast of Maui without meeting.
The French left the Hawaiian Islands and sailed north, on 1 June 1786. Another empty stretch of ocean lay before them. Conditions deteriorated as they sailed and, on the 9th, at 34ºN they encountered thick fog. On the 14th, at 41ºN, temperatures had dropped sufficiently for Laperouse to reissue warm clothing to the crew. A week later, they saw massive seaweed, whales and birds, all indicative of the proximity of land, and, on 23 June, the snow-capped mountain range that fringes the southeastern Alaskan coast was sighted.
1786 June - July. Alaska.
The coast of Alaska was known from charts produced by earlier European explorers. The Russians had sent an expedition of two ships to the area in 1741, led by the Dane, Vitus Bering. The ships had been parted in fog and the second ship, commanded by Chirikov, had reached the Alaskan coast only to suffer the loss of men in accidents. Bering, himself, had partially charted the coast but he died on the Komandor Islands off Kamchatka. When the British explorer, James Cook, arrived in the area in 1778, he had charts based on information from the Russians and also the Spanish. The Spanish were thought to have kept much information to themselves and it was not known how reliable their charts were. Cook added to them considerably but the charts were still far from complete. The rugged coast with its hundreds of islands and poor weather conditions was still a daunting place to explore in small ships.
On 24 June, Mount St. Elias, seen and named by Vitus Bering 45 years earlier, was clearly visible and helped to fix their position on the coast. Over the next few days, they tacked back and forth as fog alternatively enveloped them and cleared. The ships approached the land and anchored, allowing small boats from both ships to investigate a large inlet. De Monti, in one of the Astrolabe's boats was the senior officer to go ashore and Laperouse gave de Monti's name to the inlet. It has been retained for a small bay just inside the eastern point to the bay, now known as Yakutat Bay.
They began to move slowly southeast and, on 30 June, the ships stopped to investigate another inlet. Boats went off but did not enter the inlet. This was Dry Bay but Laperouse was certain it was the large bay described by Bering and known as Bering's Bay. On 1 July, they could see clearly and identify Cook's Mount Fairweather. At other times, however, the fog that both explorers experienced along the coast often made it very difficult to match what the French were seeing with Cook's charts.
1786 July. Port des Francais / Lituya Bay.
The next day, the narrow entrance to an inlet was located to the east of Cape Fairweather. De Pierrevert, from the Boussole, and Flassan, from the Astrolabe, were dispatched in small boats to investigate the inlet. Their favourable reports encouraged a somewhat reluctant Laperouse to take the ships in. Their first approach was unsuccessful and they tacked offshore through the night before the tide carried them in the next morning. Even then, it was a precarious passage and the ships both nearly were driven onto rocks. They anchored just inside the entrance but Laperouse was not happy with this spot, it having a shallow, rocky bottom. He sent men off to a find safer anchorage. D'Escures found a better location behind the large island in the inlet and the two ships transferred there. It was 3 July 1786.
Local people watched their arrival and they quickly came out in canoes to begin trading, especially in sea otter skins. A chief came on board to welcome them. An observatory was erected on the island and tents were put up for members of the crew to make repairs. However, thieving of items forced them back on to the ships.
The inlet, which Laperouse named Port des Francais and which is now known as Lituya Bay, is most dramatic and Laperouse was struck by the majesty of the place. He led a party to explore the head of the bay, which separates into two arms, both of which have glaciers feeding into them. The inlet eats into the coastal mountain range so on all sides it is dwarfed by high snow-capped mountains. The effect of the glaciers was felt when an iceberg was calved and the wave generated sped across the water and capsized one of the longboats. They ventured a little way up one of the glaciers but progress was very slow and dangerous so they gave up and returned to the ships.
By the 12th, Laperouse was ready to leave. Bernizet had charted the inlet but some depth soundings were still required. Three boats set off early on the morning of 13 July to complete the charting. D'Escures was the senior officer of the party and he was in charge of the Boussole's Biscay boat. Laperouse was wary of d'Escures' tempestuousness and went so far as to issue written instructions warning d'Escures not to lead the party close to the inlet's entrance should the sea be breaking over it. De Marchainville was in charge of the Astrolabe's Biscay boat while Boutin was in charge of the third boat.
They departed at 6.00am and at 10.00am Boutin returned in a distraught state. Despite his instructions, d'Escures had ventured too close to the entrance and his boat had been swamped. De Marchainville had then directed his boat to attempt to rescue the occupants of the first boat but his boat had also been overturned. Boutin had realised that a similar fate would befall them and had pulled back. Search parties were dispatched and scoured both shores of the inlet. However, all 21 occupants of the two Biscay boats were lost and their bodies were never found.
The whole of the expedition was stunned. They remained for another two weeks, hoping to find survivors or at least remains. They also needed to come to terms with the loss and reorganise the duties and structure of the crews. The plans for the next part of the voyage needed revising. A cenotaph was erected on the island and a plaque listed the names of the men lost. The island was named Cenotaph Island. On the positive side, they had produced detailed descriptions of the inlet and its people. A small vocabulary had been compiled and charts drawn. Finally, on 30 July, the two ships sailed out of Port des Francais.
In the 1860s, the Western Union Telegraph Company had plans to build a telegraph line from the United States via Alaska and Siberia to Russia. An expedition visited this part of Alaska in 1871, investigating the proposed route, and many of the features of the area now carry names of people and ships of Laperouse's expedition, bestowed by the Western Union people. The men who died in 1786 were not forgotten with two mountains being called Mount Marchainville and Mount Escures.
1786 August - September. Alaska to California.
The delay at Lituya Bay meant that the voyage down the coast would now be down at speed with few stops. It was arranged that, in the event of separation, they would proceed to Monterey in California. Their first day out at sea marked the first anniversary since leaving Brest. A search for the Northwest Passage had been one of the tasks of the voyage and, as he sailed south, Laperouse made a half-hearted attempt to locate it. He knew from meeting Samuel Hearne at Hudson Bay in 1782 that any passage must lie far to the north and did not link with Hudson Bay.
The French sailed on following the coast where they could see it and keeping outside the hundreds of small islands that were known from the charts of Cook and the Spanish. The French produced charts of their own as went south. As they had no contact with local people they devised used existing European names or devised new names themselves. Most of the French names have disappeared but a few have been retained.
A mountain overlooking Lituya Bay was named Mount Crillon after a friend of Laperouse, Felix-Francois-Dorothee de Bretton, Comte de Crillon. It was later applied to nearby glaciers. On 4 August, the Boussole and the Astrolabe passed Cross Sound and Cape Cross on Yakobi Island.
Over the next few days they sighted Port Los Remedios (Salisbury Sound) and Cape Engano (Sitka Point) at either end of Kruzof Island. The high volcano on the island was sighted and called Mount St. Hyacinthe (it was Cook's Mount Edgecumbe). They suspected a deep bay but fog obscured Sitka Sound.
On 7 August, they sailed down the coast of Baranof Island and two inlets were sighted and named. Port Necker (Necker Bay) was named for Jacques Necker, a French Minister of Finance. The name was later applied to some islands just to the northwest. The next inlet was called Port Guibert (it is now Whale Bay). The southern point of Baranof Island was named Cap Tschirikow to honour the companion of Bering, Chirikov, who visited the area in 1741. The cape is now called Cape Ommaney. Fog was making sightings difficult. The Chatham Strait behind Baranof Island was suspected, while the next group of islands they passed, now known as the Hazy Islands, were called Isles La Croyere. Louis de Lisle de la Croyere, a frenchman, had sailed with Chirikov.
The Spanish had produced detailed charts of the next part of the coast. Francisco Mourelle had named Port Bucarelli (Bucareli Bay) after the Viceroy of Mexico, Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Ursua. Laperouse sailed past the islands hiding Port Bucarelli without seeing them. Early on the morning of 9 August, he sighted the Islas San Carlos (Forrester Island), sailing past them to their west. Cape Muzon, on Dall Island was seen in the distance to the east as they crossed a wide stretch of water, Dixon Entrance, to arrive off the northern coast of Graham Island, one of the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Langara Island at the northwest tip of Graham Island was sighted on 10 August but thick fog forced the ships to the west and comparative safety. They approached land again on the 11th near Fleurieu Point and north of Baie de Clonard (Beresford Bay), north of Pivot Mountain. Fog forced them away from land once more but they regained it on the 17th further to the south. It was, by now, Moresby Island, which is only separated from Graham Island by a narrow stretch of water, Skidegate Channel. Graham Island has a Clonard Point and Mount La Perouse at its southern end.
A mountain on Moresby Island was named Mount de la Touche and a nearby inlet was named Baie de la Touche (Tasu Sound). (De Latouche-Treville had sailed with Laperouse). They continued sailing southeast following the line of the coast at a distance to reach the southern headland on 20 August. Laperouse named the point Cap Hector, after the Port Captain of Brest, the Comte d'Hector. Some small islands off the point were called the Isles Kerouard after Hector's niece who also happened to be de Langle's wife, Georgette de Kerouartz. Cap Hector is now Cape St. James.
Rounding the point, the ships were able to sail to the northeast. Laperouse named a cape on the east coast of Moresby Island, Cape Buache after the French geographer. Its exact location is unknown. There is a Prevost Point on this coast. Sailing on across Hecate Strait, Laperouse speculated about the existence of navigable channels running north-south between the islands and the mainland. Their progress was halted by small islands, which Laperouse named the Iles Fleurieu. This name has disappeared and the ships were off Aristazabal and Price Islands. Turning south once more on 23 August, Laperouse sighted the southern point of Goose Island and called it Cape Fleurieu.
The Boussole and the Astrolabe were successfully keeping together despite the fog and now they were sailing south across Queen Charlotte Sound. On 24 August they sighted and named Sartine Island. This tiny island is one of the Scott Islands, off the northwest tip of Vancouver Island, and Sartine was Minister of Marine, Antoine-Raymond-Jean-Gualbert-Gabriel de Sartine, Comte d'Alby.
Laperouse was aware he was approaching Nootka Sound, a safe harbour on Vancouver Island used by James Cook. He was aiming for the inlet and had seen Cook's Woody Point (Cape Cook) when more fog drove him away from land on the 25th. Three days later he sighted Estevan Point and passed over a shallow submarine mound of stones, the origin of which puzzled Laperouse. On 29 August, the ships were close to Amphitrite Point on Vancouver Island but more dense fog set in and Laperouse directed the ships south, parallel to the coast, thereby missing the mouth on Juan de Fuca Strait.
They passed the mouth of the Columbia River and Cabo Redondo (Tillamook Head) on 3 September but conditions remained hazy. Two days later, the ships reached Cabo Blanco where Laperouse named some rocks, Necker Islands, but the name has not been retained. Sailing on, he saw a volcano erupting inland from Cabo Mendocino. The volcano was probably Mount Shasta, which is 4316 metres high, about 200 kilometres inland, and which shows evidence of having erupted about the time of Laperouse's visit. Expecting gales, Laperouse took the ships further out to see but by the 10th and 11th he was approaching land again only to have fog obscure sightings of Monterey, their destination.
1786 September. Monterey.
The land could be seen through haze on 12 September and, on the 13th, the ships sailed into Monterey Bay. In the afternoon, they could see the fort at the Presidio and anchored. They moved the ships closer to the fort the next morning. The Governor of Alta (or New) California, Pedro de Fages, was expecting the ships, word having arrived from Concepcion. He welcomed the French and offered them the use of all the faclities.
The Spanish had only recently moved north from Mexico through Baja California to colonise this area. A network of Catholic Missions was established. The settlement of Monterey, begun 16 years earlier in 1770, comprised a small military detachment and a Franciscan Mission. The Franciscans had moved from their original location in Monterey to found the San Carlos Mission over the hill in Carmel, by the Carmel River. The head of the Mission, Padre Firmin Francisco de Lasuen extended an equally warm welcome to the visitors. Over the next few days, Laperouse and his colleagues closely observed the Mission and its relationship with the local Native Americans. Members of two tribes of Indians, the Achastla and the Eccelemachs, were living at the Mission and short vocabularies were obtained along with descriptions of their living conditions.
The French were back on board on 22 September but winds prevented their sailing. The next objective was Macao on the south coast of China from which they would strike north to Japan and the northwest Pacific. Laperouse had obtained a chart from the Spanish in Monterey, which showed more supposed islands so his first action was to attempt to find the islands. There is a small memorial to Laperouse, marking his visit in 1786, in the grounds of the San Carlos Mission in Carmel.
1786. The remainder of Laperouse's great voyage.
The Solide was 300 tons and carried a crew of 50 men. Marchand was captain with Pierre Masse and Prosper Chanal as joint second-in-command. Claude Roblet was one of the surgeons on board and he and Chanal bothe kept journals. The ship was ready to sail in June 1790 but the international events between Spain and Britain over Nootka Sound were slowly being resolved and the French deemed it prudent to wait. The ship finally sailed from Marseilles on 14 December 1790.
After a shop stopover in the Cape Verde Islands, Marchand sailed south determined not to land again before the Northwest Coast. This was probably so as not to alert the Spanish of his destination and intentions. The Solide was off Staten Island on 1 April 1791 before rounding Cape Horn. Sailing north in the Pacific, Marchand realised he was short of water and headed for the Marquesas, which he reached on 12 June. Two days later, he anchored in Madre de Dios Bay at the western end of Tahuata. The French remained here for six days meeting and trading the local Marquesan people.
On the 20th, Marchand sailed north and the next day sighted an island, not shown on any charts. This was Ua Pou and one of several islands that the French would sight over the next three days. The Solide anchored off the west coast of Ua Pou while Marchand sent Masse ashore to investigate Vaieo Bay (Baie du Bon Accueil - Welcome Bay). Marchand, himself, landed further north the next day in Hakahetau Bay where he took possession for King Louis XVI of what the French called Ile Marchand. Other islands could be seen to the north and west and Marchand set off to investigate. He sailed close to the west coasts of Nuku Hiva (Ile Baux) and Hatu Iti (Les Deux Freres) before heading away to the north. Two more small islands, Eaio (Ile Masse) and Hatutaa (Ile Chanal) were seen to the north. Marchand called the group of islands, the Iles de la Revolution, but he was not to know that he was not the first outsider to see the islands. They had all been seen by Joseph Ingraham in the Hope two months earlier on his way to the Northwest Coast. In fact, they would be "discovered" and renamed yet again by the British ship "Dadalus" in March 1792 on its way to join Vancouver at Nootka. Each of these small islands now had four names, a traditional local one, an American, a French, and a Britsh!
Marchand, replenished with water and other supplies, was now able to sail for the Northwest Coast but it was already too late in the season to go too far north so he aimed for 57N and Mont San Jacinto (Mount Edgecumbe) on Kruzof Island. On 7 August, the mountain was sighted and Marchand brought the Solide into the bay to the east. George Dixon had visited this bay five years earlier and called it Norfolk Sound. Fleurieu, when he came to write up Marchand's voyage, reasoned, probably correctly, that it was the same bay called Baya de Guadalupa by the Spanish when they visited the area in 1775.
Chanal went off first to explore the bay and identify a suitable anchorage and soon the Solide was anchored close to present day Sitka. Trading began with the local Tlingit people and Marchand obtained over 100 sea otter pelts. Roblet recorded a long and detailed description of the bay and its inhabitants. Like Dixon and Portlock before him he saw signs of smallpox. He also recorded the local name of the bay as Tchinkitanay. Marchand sailed on 21 August and headed south.
The Solide arrived at Cloak Bay at the northwest point of the Queen Charlotte Islands the next day. Cloak Bay and Parry Passage separate the small northerly Langara Island (Marchand's North Island) from Graham Island to the south. Marchand stood the Solide off shore and sent Chanal in the barge to investigate Cloak Bay. Chanal made a thorough survey and produced a chart. However, when he tried to return to the ship, it had had to move and Chanal could not reach it so he returned to Langara Island and spent the night ashore. He was able to report to Marchand the next day and Marchand sent him back to begin trading. However, there were few Haida, the local people, in the village and Chanal was told the men were away hunting. He returned on board on the 27th. Other European ships, including Ingraham in the Hope had already visited and, no doubt, taken the existing supply.
Marchand was not prepared to wait and, having stocked up the barge, dispatched it on 28 August with Chanal in command down the west coast of Graham Island. The barge reached Frederick Island and went ashore. Moving on to the south they met Haida most of whom, to the surprise of the French, were wearing articles of European clothing. Chanal rowed into several inlets over the next few days, including Otard Bay, Port Louis, and Port Chanal. All the while, the Solide was sailing slowly south, just off shore. Chanal landed on Hippa Island but it was deserted and he could find no trace of the settlement that had led Dixon to give the island its name (it had reminded Dixon of a Maori pa or fortified village in New Zealand). When Chanal reached Rennell Sound he rejoined the ship.
It was now late in the year and Marchand also felt that what furs had been there had already gone, so he decided to leave. On 1 August, the Solide sailed south and reached Vancouver Island on the 4th. Marchand stood off Barkley Sound for three days, doing a little trading, before he sailed away to Hawaii on 8 September 1791. Robert Gray in the Columbia sighted the Solide as he left Clayoquot Sound on 6 September but no contact was made.
The Hawaiian Islands were reached on 4 October and left on the 11th. Marchand made a quick crossing of the Pacific and reached Macao to anchor at Typa on 25 November 1791. Unfortunately, the French arrived when the Chinese were not buying any sea otter furs as they were in dispute with the Russians. Baux's agents informed Marchand that it was impossible to sell furs in the foreseeable future so he determined to leave. However, he met Joseph Ingraham, who he had been following around the Pacific and was in tha same situation. Ingraham was ill and Roblet tended to him.
Marchand sailed taking his furs with him, on 6 December 1791, and reached Mauritius (the Ile de France) on 30 January 1792. After a stay of 11 weeks, Marchand sailed again and proceeded round into the Atlantic. He put in quickly at St. Helena in early June and passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on 4 August. Ten days later on 14 August 1792, the Solide arrived back in France at Toulon harbour.
The voyage had only taken 20 months and Marchand had only lost one man, and he had died from a stroke. However, financially it was not a success as he he still had his furs. Baux decided to send the furs to Lyon but the effects of the Revolution were beginning to be felt and they were impounded. Before they could be recovered, the furs went rotten. Marchand transferred to the Sans-Souci and sailed for the Indian Ocean. He died a few months later on 15 May 1793, on Reunion (Ile de Bourbon).
His voyage added to the knowledge of the Northwest Coast. The journals gave early and interesting accounts of the Tlingit and Haida people from Sitka and Queen Charlotte Islands, respectively and their contact with Europeans. Chanal's work down the west coast of Graham Island added to the charting of the coast.